The Taste of Fear (A Suspense Action Thriller & Mystery Novel) Read online

  Jahja nodded his approval. “Everybody else is ready?”

  “Everybody is ready.”

  “So what do we do now?”

  “We wait until tomorrow,” Qasim said, smiling.

  CHAPTER 12

  Wednesday, December 25, 7:33 p.m.

  Serengeti National Park, Tanzania

  As soon as Scarlett stepped inside the tent she whirled on Sal. “Are you going to explain yourself?”

  “Depends,” he said, doing the lip-shrug thing.

  “That’s not the right answer.”

  “What’s gotten you so worked up?”

  “You know damn well. But if that’s how you want to play it, fine. ‘I wanted him in a talking mood,’” she said, repeating what he’d said on the phone word for word. “Or how about, ‘Tell him if we find out he’s lying, we’re going to…’” The words still made her skin crawl.

  Had Sal threatened to kill someone?

  It was unreal. And Danny would do it too, she thought. Whatever Sal told him to do, he would do it. She was positive about that. He would kill someone’s grandmother if Sal told him to.

  “Going to what, Sal?” she demanded.

  He met her glare evenly. “Don Xi is a stubborn old mule. I had Danny smack him around a little. If he was lying, Danny was to smack him around some more. It’s as simple as that.”

  She shook her head. “No, what you said, the way you said it, was worse than that.”

  “You make it sound like a big conspiracy, Scarlett. Christ, if I sounded clandestine, it was because I didn’t want you or Cooper to overhear. Because one, it’s none of Cooper’s bloody business. And two, I knew it would only get you all worked up, like you are now.”

  “I know what I heard,” she said stubbornly.

  “You’re going way overboard here.”

  “What did Don Xi tell Danny?”

  “The name of the man who set the Prince Tower on fire.”

  “And you wanted this information so you could . . . ?”

  “What are you implying?”

  “Danny’s going to kill him, isn’t he?”

  “Don Xi?”

  “Someone!” Scarlett blurted. “Don Xi. The man who set the fire. I don’t know! Don’t play dumb with me.”

  Sal stared at her for a long moment, then turned away. He shrugged out of his jacket and microfleece pullover, messed leisurely through the clothes in his suitcase, chose a cashmere sweater, and pulled it on over his white undershirt. Finally he looked at her again. “I’m going to the other tent,” he said in an all-too-reasonable tone that infuriated her.

  She stepped in front of his path. “You’re not walking away.”

  “I’m not discussing this with you right now. You’re not thinking straight. Why don’t you go and lie down for a while?”

  “Don’t patronize me, Sal,” she said icily. “Who are you?”

  “Who am I?” he snapped, and something dangerous sparkled in his eyes, something she had only seen in their darkest fights. “You want my street name? My secret identity? Maybe you want to see the costume I wear at night when I go around having affairs and killing people? Because that’s what this is all about, isn’t it? The affair? You won’t drop it, will you? You’ll never drop it. You’ll never trust me again. Anytime something comes up—a late night at the office, a business trip, a phone conversation with Danny—you’re going to automatically think the worst. Well, fuck that. I don’t think I can deal with that.”

  He shoved past her. Scarlett didn’t turn around. She heard him unzip the tent door and walk outside. Then she heard him stop.

  “The reason I wanted the name of the man Don Xi hired to kill me,” he said over his shoulder, tersely, “was so I could turn him over to the police.”

  He started walking again.

  Scarlett frowned. As soon as she’d overheard Sal tell Danny that he wanted Don Xi in a talking mood, half a dozen images of cruel interrogation techniques had popped into her head. Now she was suddenly unsure. Had she misunderstood? What Sal said made sense. It was simple and logical. In fact, it was so simple and logical she wondered why she hadn’t thought of it herself.

  “Wait,” she said, turning.

  Sal stopped, faced her. The sun was low in the sky, silhouetting him against a furnace-orange background.

  “What about Don Xi?” she pressed. “What’s Danny going to do with him now that he has the name of the man he wants?”

  “Let him get some sleep? How am I supposed to know?”

  “Don Xi’s at his home?”

  “Sure. Danny went to his house. Where did you think he was?”

  Scarlett didn’t know. Hanging upside down by his feet from the top of a building? God, she didn’t know anything anymore. She felt suddenly exhausted. “Danny was smacking Don Xi around in front of his family?”

  “He’s seventy-six. He lives alone.”

  The last of her anger and suspicion seeped away.

  “Anyway,” Sal went on, his tone business-neutral, “I’m going to get a drink. Dinner will be soon. Join me, if you’d like.”

  Scarlett stared after him as he made his way through the lengthening shadows to the mess tent. Never in her life had she been so happy to be wrong. Sal was Sal. Not the leader of some two-man vigilante squad, dishing out vengeance where he saw fit. Of course he wasn’t.

  What had she been thinking?

  She shook her head. Sal had been right. She was using the past to explain the present, which wasn’t entirely fair. He’d screwed up—big time—but he’d apologized sincerely both in private to her and publicly in front of the media. He wanted a fresh start. After a lot of soul searching, she’d decided she did also. To continue holding the affair over his head was wrong. She needed to commit to him one hundred percent or not at all, and she needed to decide that very soon.

  With these thoughts in her head, she followed him through the dying light.

  The mess tent glowed from within with warm candlelight, while outside the six-foot-tall tiki torches burned orange and jittery flames. The sun had set fully and the stars had come out, twinkling like a spill of diamonds on black velvet. The air smelled raw and primeval and invigorating. Classical music played from a stereo system somewhere, what sounded like a Bach sonata in F-sharp minor. It was welcoming and relaxing, exactly what Scarlett wanted to hear right then.

  Sal was standing beneath the overhanging branches of a large tree. With a glass of Scotch in one hand and a cigar in the other, he looked cool and in control, like a man who didn’t allow anything to faze him, not even a wife who accused him of torture and murder.

  God, she was a fool.

  Cooper was working the smoking barbeque. His long white apron read: “Don’t Mess with the Chef!” When he told Scarlett and Sal to take a seat at the table, she impulsively suggested they eat together. It was Christmas day, after all. Cooper said that was a grand idea and added another folding table and two stacking chairs to the dining setup. Kit dished out huge servings of spicy braised chicken, yogurt, and couscous. He opened a five-year-old Chardonnay and, at Scarlett’s request, a bottle of local Kinyagi gin.

  In his swashbuckling way Cooper led the conversation, recounting his adventures abroad, from the deserts of Australia and Asia to a two-month stint on the barren ice shelves of Antarctica. When he was halfway through a story that had him climbing a frozen waterfall in Switzerland, Sal excused himself to use the bathroom. Scarlett noticed Cooper watching him leave.

  “He’s had some disturbing news these past few days,” she said by way of explanation for Sal’s aloof demeanor. “He hasn’t been himself.”

  “I gathered that much from his phone conversation in the balloon.”

  “Yes, well, that was part of it.”

  “How long have you been married, if I may be so bold to ask?”

  “About four years.”

  “He’s much older.”

  “Thirteen years. How about you, Cooper? Are you married?”

  He gr
inned. “Would you marry this ugly mug?”

  “I, too, am not married,” Kit said. “So if any of your movie star friends are looking for a strong husband and the son of a chieftain, please tell them about me.”

  Their laughter was broken by a cry.

  It was Sal.

  Everybody shot to their feet. Scarlett was the first out of the tent. She looked wildly around but couldn’t see anything beyond the firelight of the camp.

  “Sal!” she shouted.

  He didn’t answer.

  “Sal!”

  Kit and Cooper exchanged a quick look. Kit dashed back inside the tent and returned carrying two rifles and a heavy-duty Eveready flashlight.

  Cooper snatched one of the rifles. “Stay here,” he told Scarlett. “We’ll check it out.”

  “No!” she protested. “I’m coming.”

  “You’ll be in the way.”

  “He’s my husband!”

  Cooper started away, Kit beside him.

  Scarlett ran to catch up.

  “Lord, woman!” Cooper grabbed her wrist and pulled her between himself and Kit. “If you must come, stay in the middle and do exactly as I say.”

  They moved at a brisk pace in the direction they’d heard Sal cry out. Kit took the lead, playing the beam of the flashlight over the ghostly trees as they moved deeper into the forest that surrounded the camp. Scarlett stuck right behind him, a hand on his shoulder. The ground beneath her feet was spongy and invisible. She stumbled twice. Cooper, taking up the rear, yanked her upright both times.

  “Sal?” she shouted again, her thoughts racing. Lions? Hyenas? Assassins?

  “Mr. Brazza?” Cooper called urgently.

  “Here.” The reply was a harsh whisper, surprisingly close.

  Kit swung the flashlight around. Sal was less than ten feet away, his back pinned to the trunk of a tree, his eyes fixed straight ahead.

  “Sal!” Scarlett ran to him and threw her arms around his neck.

  “There,” he said, pointing.

  She turned. Kit redirected the light.

  Numerous pairs of yellow eyes reflected back at them.

  “My God,” Scarlett said, her breath hitching in her throat. Her legs felt suddenly weak. “What are they?”

  “Lions,” Sal stated.

  “They’re just cubs,” Cooper said.

  “No,” Sal told him. “I saw a fully grown one, a lioness.”

  “Their mum.” Cooper nodded. “She wouldn’t have left the cubs alone. We better get out of here, slowly. If you see the mum, whatever you do, don’t run. She’ll be on you in seconds.”

  They set out in a tight line. Kit in vanguard again, Scarlett and Sal bunched in the middle, Cooper, the rear. Kit forced a much slower path out than the reckless charge in.

  “There she is,” Kit whispered suddenly, aiming the flashlight to the right.

  Two devilish eyes shone back, twenty yards away.

  Good lord, it’s following us, Scarlett thought. No—it’s stalking us.

  Her breathing sounded absurdly loud in her ears, and she wondered if the cat could smell her fear, the way dogs supposedly could. Her heart beat like a tribal drum in her chest.

  Several paces later Kit stopped. Scarlett peered anxiously over his shoulder.

  The lioness was directly ahead of them now, much closer than before. Powerful and sinewy muscles bunched and knotted beneath the silky flank as it slinked between the trees, silent, ghost-like. The thin tail, the tip marked by a black tassel, snaked back and forth in rhythm to its imperial stride. Faint rosettes spotted the hind legs, tapering down to the paws. Then abruptly, dramatically, the beast swung its head to look directly at them. It snarled in a rictus of menace, baring its yellow fangs and a flash of pink tongue, before turning away again, apparently bothered by the glare of the light in its face. It growled, a low and rumbling sound that came from deep within its throat. Scarlett didn’t know whether that was a warning sound or a hungry sound, only that it was blood chilling either way. A second growl answered the first, from somewhere to the left of them.

  There were two lionesses.

  Cooper understood the danger. “Cover your ears!” he ordered, then fired a round from the bolt-action rifle into the sky. The muzzle flash was as bright as daylight. The sound was deafening. The acrid stench of cordite filled the air.

  Scarlett searched the trees for either lioness. They appeared to be gone. “Monsters be gone,” she breathed. It was a line from a fairy tale she’d read as a child, and she repeated it over and over in her head now, a kind of mantra that would keep the creatures from returning.

  Kit pressed forward, moving at the same dreadfully slow pace. Scarlett wanted to run, but she remembered what Cooper had told them. She’ll be on you in seconds. Another tense minute passed with still no glow from the tiki torches. It seemed to be taking them a hell of a lot longer leaving the forest than coming in, and she began to question whether they were going the wrong way. God, if that was the case, and they got lost—

  There was a commotion to the left of them.

  Kit swung the light. Scarlett’s jaw dropped. A lioness came barreling toward them through the trees, huge and pale as bone, grunting and snorting.

  It seemed to be coming straight for her.

  Because she was the smallest?

  The weakest?

  “Don’t run!” Cooper ordered.

  “Shoot it!” Sal bellowed.

  “Don’t move!” Cooper repeated.

  Shoot it! Scarlett screamed. But the words never escaped her locked throat. Nothing did except a harsh whistle.

  The lioness didn’t slow.

  It was coming straight for her.

  Why isn’t anybody shooting it?

  At the last possible moment the lioness skidded to a halt on muscular front legs. It glowered at them, still snorting. It was so close that Scarlett could see the stiff white whiskers, the wet black nose in the shape of an upside-down triangle, the tuft of beard. Its eyes shone like gold-flecked quartz, the pupils rounded to perfect black dots. A killer’s eyes. Emotionless, without mercy. The power the cat exuded was tangible. She waited in horror for it to lung forward and claw off her face with one bat of its oversized paw. But it only snarled, flicked its head, then trotted back into the forest.

  The world seemed to tilt crazily before righting itself. Scarlett had to grab hold of Cooper’s shoulder to keep from falling over. Still, she felt oddly okay. Terrified, yes. Woozy even. But the fear was tempered by an unrealistic calm, and she knew she must be out of her mind on adrenaline.

  “Why—?” she began.

  “Later,” Cooper said.

  The group continued in strict formation through the picket of trees. Sounds Scarlett hadn’t realized she’d tuned out returned in a wall of noise. Cicadas, toads, the crunch of their footsteps on the leaf litter, the faint melody of classical music.

  The camp.

  Scarlett glimpsed the soft yellow light in the distance. The elusive music—Vivaldi’s “Summer”—became louder. Given the danger that had just passed, the delicate staccato notes of the violin concerto sounded absurd, like a wedding march at a funeral. Then again, she thought, they also sounded very civilized. Wherever you had Vivaldi playing, you had hors d’oeuvres and wine and doctors and philanthropists. You certainly didn’t have a crazy lioness charging you down.

  They reached the relative safety of the mess tent without further incident. Stepping into the light was a feeling like no other. The light represented safety and order and control—control over nature and all the deadly things that hid within her nighttime embrace.

  Scarlett’s adrenaline ebbed, her nerves kicked in, and she began to shake uncontrollably.

  “Would you like some tea?” Cooper asked her.

  “Why didn’t you shoot it?” she demanded.

  “She was only protecting her cubs.”

  “Protecting, my ass,” Sal said. “The bitch bloody well charged us.”

  “If you notice
d,” Cooper said, “she was flicking her tail back and forth during the charge. That means she’s only testing you out. If you hold your ground, she’ll usually back down—”

  “Hell of a risk,” Sal interjected. “It was our lives at stake.”

  “If I had shot that lioness, the game department could have had my license.”

  “And had you read it wrong, one or more of us might be dead.”

  “We wouldn’t have been in that predicament, Mr. Brazza,” Cooper said, getting riled himself, “had you not been out there on your own. What in the Sam hill were you doing?”

  Sal didn’t reply.

  Suddenly Scarlett knew. “You were on your phone.”

  He shrugged. “I needed to touch base with Danny.”

  “Why’d you need to go off into the forest?” she said, feeling herself sliding back into the black world of lies and conspiracy. “What’s the big secret? What are you not telling me, Sal?”

  “I was simply walking as I talked. I had no idea how far I’d gone.”

  “You’re a liar.”

  “Watch it, cara mia.”

  “You know,” she plowed on, “I was ready to put everything in the past and move on, ready to start over, fresh. How can I do that when you won’t be honest with me?”

  “I told you, I was walking—”

  “I don’t care about that! I don’t care about that. I don’t care about anything anymore. Christ! This is unbelievable.”

  Sal stared at her, his eyes dark and defiant.

  Scarlett turned on her heels and stormed off.

  After a few minutes of silently venting her anger, Scarlett got herself under control. Cooper, who had followed her into the mess tent and made her tea, was now sitting on the other sofa.

  “I’m sorry you had to see that,” she told him. “It’s not your job to babysit dysfunctional couples.”

  “Listen, love. I don’t know what the two of you are chomping at each other’s throats over. Not exactly anyway. And I don’t care to know. It’s none of my business. But if you don’t want to go to the airstrip tomorrow together, I’ll have Kit make two trips.”